Friends of Music's 26th Season -- 2012 Concert Schedule Announced

Robin Ward, saxophone and Dan Chien, piano play to a

packed house before the City of the Hills Chorus performed
at the Holiday Concert on Dec. 4.

What a tumultuous year it has been--internationally, nationally and locally--from political and economic upheaval to incredible natural disasters around the globe. In our area many folks suffered terrible losses from the flooding at the end of August. Sometimes it seemed our little concert series was the island of calm in our stormy sea and we were fortunate to hear some truly amazing performances.

We have more glorious music in store for the coming year, and we hope you will join with us once again to enjoy the performances and the company of your friends, neighbors and visitors. As usual the concerts are on Sundays at 3PM at the Frank W Cyr Center in Stamford, NY. From April through November these dates are the third Sunday of the month while the Holiday concert in December is on the first Sunday.

There may be changes to the following schedule in the event of illness or other disaster (let's hope we are spared in 2012!) so please check here or on our Web site at friendsmusic.org for possible updates. We wish you and all your loved ones a wonderful New Year's celebration and we'll see you in April!

Friends of Music 26^th Season – 2012 Concert Schedule*

April 15             Select Artists from the Metropolitan Opera’s

                           Lindemann Young Artist Development Program

May 20              The Allant Trio

                           Graduate Students from the Juilliard School:

                           Alina Lim, cello; Beth Hyo Kyoung Nam, piano and

                           Anna Jihyun Park, violin

June 17              Piano Trio with Clovis Nicolas, bass

                           Around the World with Jazz Standards

July 15               Duo Prism

                           Rieko Aizawa, piano and Jesse Mills, violin

August 19          Serio Divertimenti (Serious Fun)

                           Lisa Arkis, flute; Monte Morgenstern, clarinet;

                           Peter Prosser, cello and Susan Sobolewski, piano

September 16   Yoni Levyatov, piano and Katie Thomas, violin

October 21        Bryant Park Quartet

                           Anna Elashvili and Ben Russell, violin;

                           Adam Meyer, viola and Tomoko Fujita, cello      

November 18    Justin Kolb, piano

                           Liszt and the Barefoot Carmelite

December 2       Holiday Concert

* Subject to change; please check friendsmusic.org

   or FoMStamford.blogspot.com for updates.

Happy New Year!

City of the Hills Chorus Performs Annual Holiday Concert, Sunday Dec 4th at 3PM

City of the Hills Chorus

Seated left to right: Terry Hait, Jan McGrath, Elaine Mattice, Flora Beth Cunningham (director), Linda Allen, Sue Dana-LeViness, and Joy Sanders.

2nd row: Joanne Burdick, Liz Moeller, Mary Johnson-Butler, and Jo Melmer.

3rd row: Pat Ashe, Donna Fornito, Carole Wood, and Kathy Polley.

4th row: Chris Hughes, Bettie Bennett, and Connie Herzig.

5th row: Karen Adolfsen and Dorcas Ross. Absent from picture: Kate Brooker Milano.



Another season has come and almost gone, but this one was extra-special: our 25th Anniversary, our Silver Jubilee. Bittersweet to see it pass but we have our annual Holiday Concert to cheer us up, this year featuring the City of the Hills Chorus -- Oneonta being the city in this case. A fabulous close to an amazing year of music, their performance will start the Holiday season in a harmonious and fun-filled key.

A chapter of the Sweet Adelines International, this group of women sing a capella in four-part harmony in the American folk tradition known as barbershop style. They will perform holiday carols and perhaps a contemporary song or two (I saw something about "California Dreamin'" though I have not been given the final program yet) interspersed with sing-a-long carols for optional audience participation. To learn more about the group please see their Web site at http://www.saregion16.com/cityofthehillschorus/cityothills2.htm.

I had forgotten how sweet and infectious this style of singing is until I saw The Music Man the other week on WNYC-PBS television from Syracuse. Throughout the film a group of 4 men who called themselves the Buffalo Bills wanders the streets of the fictitious River City, Iowa breaking into song whenever prompted by the notorious Professor Harold Hill, musical con man. I defy anyone to resist smiling at their rendition of "Lida Rose" or "Goodnight Ladies." I know many a Delaware County senior citizen who jumps - to the extent they are able to - at any chance to hear barbershop-style singing, so make a senior citizen happy and bring them to this concert.


Robin Ward, saxophone

And lest we get too sentimental we are starting a new tradition at this final concert for 2011, something we hope will become a regular feature: we will hear a brief performance at the beginning of the concert by a local music student. December 4 we will hear from Robin Ward, saxophone. Ms. Ward is a high school Senior and is in the process of auditioning for college admission in her chosen field of music education. She will be accompanied on piano by Dan Chien.

After playing a year of clarinet Robin Ward began playing tenor saxophone in sixth grade under the direction of Gary LiCalzi of the South Kortright Central School.  Since then she has participated in All-county band and chorus and was selected to play in the area All-state band. Last summer she began playing in the rock band Electric Evolver, performing in Albany, Stamford and Lake Placid. She now studies saxophone privately with Christine Cummings of Hartwick College and plays in the Hartwick Jazz Ensemble. Robin has applied to several colleges including Ithaca, Gordon, SUNY Fredonia, and Mansfield.

How wonderful to hear this talented young woman and give her a local boost as she prepares to enter the professional music world! We hope you will join us for some wonderful music of the season and for great food and good company, too, on Sunday December 4th at 3PM at the Cyr Center in Stamford.

Thank you as always to all of our donors and especially to the Robinson-Broadhurst Foundation for making this concert and our entire series possible! We also thank the O'Connor Foundation for their recent disbursement of their generous grant to us, which we were able to fully match. THANK YOU to all who contributed!

Giving Thanks

Ismail Lumanovski, Alexandra Joan and
Vasko Dukovski wait before the concert begins.

In the United States we just celebrated what is unofficially our favorite holiday: Thanksgiving. With no particular religious association and with little of the commercialism associated with many other holidays, it is a day when most Americans - whether newcomers or liflong residents - focus on enjoying time and good food with family and loved ones. For at least one day many of us try to adopt an attitude of gratitude, as the saying goes and without question we have much to be thankful for. As imperfect as our Union is, for most of us we would be hard pressed to find a better place to live. As for the most unfortunate among us whose numbers grow daily during these days of the Great Recession, many of us care deeply for you and for your struggles though that may be little consolation.
Here in Stamford we also give thanks for great musical performances like the one we experienced this past Sunday from the Grneta Ensemble. I am criticized sometimes (rightfully so) for hyperbole, but though it seems impossible I believe our artists keep getting better and better. In a year of outstanding performances this last concert was so amazing, dare I say the best one yet. A number of people in the audience told me they hesitated to come, thinking "Two clarinets? How interesting could that be?" but they were without exception so glad they had ventured out to hear the incredible artistry of the Grneta Ensemble. I imagine many who did not attend stayed away because of a similar misconception and you really missed something grand!


The Grneta Ensemble warming up on Sunday afternoon.

I am not a musician and am not capable of making a critique of any consequence. I can only note what I experienced and what others in attendance relayed to me. Vasko Dukovski and Ismail Lumanovski on clarinet and Alexandra Joan at the Steinway enchanted us, charmed us, knocked our musical socks off with their artistry, their energy, their sheer talent. After a perfectly balmy and lovely late November day and nearly two hours of amazing music, the audience leapt to its feet in a tremendous ovation to be rewarded with an encore in the tradition of Klezmer music, folk with jazz overtones that would have had us all dancing in the aisles were we a little less shy. The music stayed with me for at least another 24 hours, replaying in my head.

We are waiting anxiously for the prosmised recording and Vasko, do let us know when it is available! You three have many friends in these hills who want something to hold us over until your next appearance at the Cyr Center, which we hope will be soon. You inspired a young local musician who was reported to have said after hearing you and Ismail perform "If I'd known clarinet could sound like that I would never have switched to the saxophone!" By the way, Mr. Dukovski told us that "grneta" is an old Macedonian word for an instrument that may have been a clarinet or one that certainly was clarinet-like.

I posted this second photo of the young musicians in their casual clothing to remind us all that while they are young professionals, they are young; friendly, approachable people with extreme dedication to their art and a great desire to share that art with us, much to our delight. Such a long day for the people who come to perform here, too, mostly from the New York City area: three and a half hours by car each way, depending on traffic and weather. After decades of daily practice for long hours each day, they come for relatively little money to a place that is very unlikely to enhance their careers for a small group of people who nonetheless are truly thankful for the opportunity to hear such fine performances. Thank you, musical artists young and not so young, for sharing your gifts with us.

We also give thanks to the Robinson-Broadhurst Foundation and now to the O'Connor Foundation as well, to your founders and your heirs and your trustees for the funding that make these concerts possible. How especially appropriate in this new gilded age, of greed beyond measure and financial robber barons to note the example of these families in dedicating a sizeable chunk of their fortunes to enhancing the quality of life for the community at large in perpetuity. We give thanks to our many individual donors whose gifts may not be as sizeable in dollars and cents but whose importance could not be any greater; without your support we would have no reason to exist.

Thank you! THANK YOU.